


Little Differences

by ToiletPaperPrincess



Series: Miscellaneous Fics [13]
Category: Ranma 1/2
Genre: Coming Out, Fluff, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 07:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13071828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToiletPaperPrincess/pseuds/ToiletPaperPrincess
Summary: Ranma and Akane try something new.





	Little Differences

**Author's Note:**

> My absolute favorite thing about the Ranma 1/2 franchise is the psychology behind Ranma and Akane's interactions (they each have a crush on the other and are each trying to sneakily figure out if the other has a crush while also trying to sneakily keep their own crush a secret), so here's a quick, playful little attempt to emulate that. With the difference that here they've been together for a while and are at least trying to be a little more honest...
> 
> Apologies for the gender-binary-supporting language here, if that bother anyone. It's partly because the R 1/2 canon is strongly gender-binary, and partly because I'm cis and don't yet have a thorough enough understanding of nonbinary genders to comfortably headcanon how Ranma might view his gender (except that he's pretty obviously Not Cis). ...And also a combination of the two, thinking about Ranma and Akane as teens in the early 90s who might not yet have heard of the concept of "nonbinary" and are still using gender-binary-based language because of that. Anyways, I stuck to the canon and used "he" for Ranma throughout but also had him and Akane refer to his different forms as "boy" and "girl" (in quotation marks to indicate the terms aren't 100% accurate).

Akane’s fingernails dug into her palm.

She willed herself to remain still, hardly daring to breathe, her whole body a tense coil of muscle trying desperately not to spring. Her senses were overloaded. The floor felt cold and hard beneath her. The touch of a dust mote was unbearably itchy. And every little clatter of brooms and buckets bumping against each other was deafening—and there were _so_ many clatters, the storage closet was so cramped you couldn’t sneeze without making something clatter.

Then, of course, there was the pungent lemon scent of cleaning fluids.

...And the musky smell.

...And the warmth and weight of a nearby body.

...And the soft, moist touch of a mouth.

Akane inhaled stiffly, cautiously, through her nose, holding it just an instant too long before blowing it back out the same way. Ranma pressed in more insistently. Akane’s lower lip trembled. Slim fingers touched her cheek. She flinched, but managed not to punch. The slim fingers retreated.

Then the mouth retreated, and Akane sucked in a huge breath, almost coughing from the effort. Ranma studied her nervously.

“Well?” he murmured.

Even in the dim light, the red in Akane’s face was unmistakable. “Well _what?_ ” she snapped, glaring at a hand towel.

“ ‘Well wha—’? Well _how was it?_ ”

“If you’re looking for a compliment—”

“ _You know what I mean_.” Ranma patted one of his own breasts automatically—it could be so easy to forget which form he was in. “How was it _with a ‘girl’?_ ’S the whole reason we’re mackin’ in a school closet, right, you wanted to try—”

Akane’s shoulders hunched. Brooms clattered on either side of her.

“I don’t know!” she grumbled. “Fine, whatever. I mean. It’s still just _you_ , obviously. So it was basically just the same as kissing a guy anyways. It doesn’t matter. Stop asking about it!”

“I only—” Ranma spluttered. “I thought you—listen, _you_ asked _me_ to—”

“It’s _fine_.”

Ranma’s shins ached from kneeling over Akane, and he was on edge from listening for possible approaching suitors or voyeurs, and trying to guess at Akane’s thoughts was always a terrifyingly stressful process—he could never tell what set her off, she never said what she meant so _he_ couldn’t say what _he_ meant either, and god he was so afraid of making her hate him—

There was only one thing he could think of that she probably maybe wanted, because it was what she had originally asked him to do, so he panicked and did it...in typical tactless Ranma fashion.

“Was it not girlish enough? I’m sowwy,” he pouted, lunging forward and clamping her into a tight hug. Since he could feel the press of her breasts, he figured she could feel his and gyrated against her. Akane hit him surprisingly hard on the shoulder, but he was too self-conscious to notice. “Golly, Akane, your lip gloss is _so_ pretty—”

Akane hit him again.

Ranma let go.

Tears ran hot down Akane’s already flaming face and she sniffled petulantly, a futile attempt to swallow them back up. All it did was make a pathetic, sobbing, choking sound.

“Akane—” Ranma mumbled.

“ _Shut up_.” Akane hated how pathetic she sounded, and how that hatred made her cry harder. She turned and started picking up things that had fallen out of her pockets as if that would keep Ranma from seeing her, from being repulsed by her. “This was a dumb idea. Sorry.” That wasn’t meant just for the “dumb idea”. “Let’s j-just go home, all right?”

Agh, Akane _hated_ him, she _definitely_ hated him—

“It was just a joke,” muttered Ranma, then slapped himself (more gently than Akane had). “That is—sorry. Okay? I’m sorry. I thought it’d make you laugh or somethin’.”

Akane kept shoving things into her pockets.

“I mean...”

Ranma sucked in a breath.

“I could tell you didn’t like it,” he went on, rising to his feet. A domino effect of mops toppled over, but hands that could pluck chestnuts out of an open fire could catch those without even noticing. “The k-kiss, I mean. Not that, uh—not that—well, I mean, you do a _little_ somethin’ when I’ve got a ‘boy’ body—a-and this time you just sat there an’ took it like somethin’ to get over with—not that I—I mean—whatever, I just—”

“You idiot.”

Ranma dropped the mops reflexively. The clatters were deafening.

Akane rubbed her eyes, still not looking up.

“You couldn’t tell how scared I was?”

Ranma blinked. “Well, I—obviously you were scared, you’re a guy-lovin’ girl and some ‘girl’ was tryin’ to kis—”

“ _Idiot_.”

Akane had pulled up her knees now, burying her face in her skirt. The word came out muffled through the cloth.

For a long time, the only sound in the room was slow, labored breathing.

Ranma inhaled again.

“You were scared...but that was it,” he murmured, rubbing his face. “Not grossed out or nothin’, just _scared_.”

Exhale.

“... _So_...”

Akane nodded mutely. He couldn’t see it in the dark, but her silence conveyed the same message.

Ranma exhaled again, this time an irritable sigh. “So then just _say so_ , stupid! So you like kissin’ girls, big whoop!”

“ _See?_ ” Akane cried, burrowing further into her knees. “I _knew_ you’d make fun of me!”

“What’re you _talkin’_ about?”

“You’re going to start teasing me every time I so much as _look_ at a girl, _aren’t_ you? You’ll tell me to make Shampoo mad so she’ll give me the ‘Kiss of Death’, or—or try to set me up with Ukyo, or Kodachi, or _Cologne_ —or keep a bottle of water in your pocket so you can s-splash yourself while we’re—”

A bark of laughter echoed around the room, startling Akane into looking up. Her face was a mess of snot and tears, but Ranma was clutching his sides, howling with laughter.

“ _Ranma!_ ” Akane snapped, but the edges of her mouth were tugging up in an automatic smile.

“ _HA!_ I don’t mean t—Akane, really, I—” He wheezed, slapping his thigh. “You’ve got this all figured out, don’t’cha?”

Akane moved to rise, but Ranma swiftly dropped to his knees, squatting over her again. Akane flushed automatically. Ranma grinned and gently booped her nose.

“It’s tough enough keeping you all to myself when it’s only _guys_ after you,” he said. “I ain’t about to double my competition if I can help it.”

Akane smiled.

“But, y’know, Cologne _is_ pretty cute.”

“ _RAAANMA!_ ”

Another punch hit Ranma’s shoulder, but it was soft and playful and they were both laughing. He joked a little more, she gasped for breath—

—slim fingers touched his cheeks—

—the soft, moist touch of a mouth—

Akane held him to her, kissing insistently. She inhaled in a deep sigh through her nose. Ranma hardly dared to breathe.

Gently her lips slid away.

“I love you,” she whispered, barely loud enough to hear.

Ranma made a noise as if to reply, but she kissed him again before he could. Then she sat back with a prim sigh—though her face was still as red as his—and absently adjusted her skirt.

“Kissing a ‘girl’ is all right, I guess.”

“You ‘ _guess’?_ ” Ranma collapsed from a squat into a kneel, wide-eyed. “You—! An’ I suppose it was an _accident_ that you got a squeezy handful of my ches—”

“I suppose,” she said.

But she was smiling.


End file.
